Hero (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

The first thing she was aware of was the pain.

She hurt everywhere. Her mind felt cloudy again, this time from soreness and fatigue, swimming to the surface in a sea of pain that enveloped her from head to toe. The worst of it was in her head, which rang as if it were a bell that had been clanged in a church tower. She didn’t even try opening her eyes. To do so would let the light in, causing more sparks of pain to shoot inside her head.

She remained lying down, becoming gradually aware of her surroundings as her body and mind slowly woke up.

Voices from close by. Male. “…lucky she’s alive…”

She felt herself sink into unconsciousness again, slipping back into that black sea. She stared at the IV hooked to her arm, watching it drip slowly as her vision blurred and fell asleep once again.

When she came back up again, not knowing she’d even gone under, the voices were still conversing. “…has been convicted of aggravated assault and robbery…served five years of a twenty year sentence and…”

“…just don’t believe that he’d…”

“…I know…I know…”

“....I’ve been trying to pin him to something for awhile now…I have it on good authority that he’s killed…”

“…on life support now…”

“…well, she’s a hero for what she did…”

“…the family’s been contacted…didn’t tell them how she was killed…”

She slipped back into unconsciousness.

*      *      *

She didn’t realize she was talking until she heard her voice. How long she’d been carrying on a conversation with whoever was talking to her, she had no idea. She blinked, the room becoming more focused and she saw she was in a hospital. A middle-aged Black man in a suit was sitting in a chair by the bed. Two other men, both White and dressed in suits, were standing near the doorway to the room, looking at her.

“…I just…reacted…and I…I…” She blinked, suddenly aware of where she was.

The men were silent, waiting for her to continue. The man sitting beside her bed nodded at her.

“Go on, ma’am.”

 She took a deep breath. Collected her thoughts. What had she told them?

A tear slipped down her cheek.

“Mrs. Smith…is she okay? Is she alive?”

“Adelle Smith?” The man by her bed asked. “You mean…”

“She’s alive,” the White man standing by the door said. “She’s in ICU.”

She wet her lips; her mouth was suddenly very dry. Her heart pounded.

“And…the others?”

They said nothing. The man by her bed traded a glance with the other two standing by the door. It was obvious to her now that they were cops. Detectives.

“You need your rest,” the detective sitting beside her said. He stood up. “We’ll come back later.”

“No…please!”

The three detectives left the hospital room and closed the door behind them.

Leaving her wondering…

*      *      *

“Something doesn’t seem right,” Detective Carl Hendrix said. The three of them were standing together near the nurses’ station in the ICU wing of Philadelphia General Hospital.

“I agree,” Detective Robert Lennon said. He traded a glance with his partner, Brian Swinson. Robert and Brian had observed the interrogation from the doorway and Robert could tell from his partner’s troubled features that what they’d heard just didn’t add up.

It should have been open and shut. Noted civil rights activist and a hero to many of the people in the North Philadelphia neighborhood she lived in suffered a stroke. Her daughter, Tonya Brown, arranges for home care nursing. Hospice Nursing in Philadelphia sends two of their best, Natsinet Zenawi and Rachael Williams. At some point during the two plus weeks Mrs. Smith is receiving in-home care and rehabilitation Mike Simmons, a notorious crime figure in the neighborhood who’d once served time for aggravated assault and was a known drug dealer and criminal, broke into the apartment and repeatedly raped Rachael Williams and Adelle Smith, carrying on a three day session of torture and abuse towards both women before finally killing the nurse and dismembering her. When Natsinet arrived at her scheduled time she walked into a house of horrors; during the ensuing fight with Mike Simmons, she suffered serious injuries and managed to wound Mike with several stab wounds. Tonya Brown arrived soon after and that’s when all hell broke loose.

“Any word on Tonya’s condition?” Detective Swinson asked one of the nurses manning the ICU desk.

“She’s in a coma. Critical condition,” the nurse answered.

“And Mike Simmons?”

“Still unconscious.”

“So what about her?” Detective Swinson asked, jerking a thumb back in the direction of the room they’d just exited.

“She took a fifty caliber bullet in the hip. It looks like she’d been strangled as well. There were large contusions around her neck. Someone beat her up pretty good. She’s lost a lot of blood. She may not walk again if the doctor can’t reconstruct her hip bone. Even then it’s going to require months of physical therapy.”

“Damn, that’s terrible. Thank you, nurse.”  Detective Swinson turned back to his partner and Detective Hendrix.

“So let’s get this mess straight for the report.”

Swinson pulled out a small spiral notepad and flipped to a blank page as he removed a pen from his shirt pocket. He began flipping back and forth between the notes he’d written down earlier while jotting down more notes, trying to fill in the blanks.

“According to the first officers on the scene, Mrs. Smith had the pistol in her hand when they arrived. They think she may have shot Ms. Zenawi accidentally while trying to protect her daughter. Simmons must have dropped the gun during his fight with the nurse and Mrs. Smith was trying to pick it up when the gun went off.” Hendrix began, while flipping through his own notes.

“Damn. She must feel terrible. I mean, if that’s really how it happened.”

“Yeah, if.”

“So Michael Simmons was the one who killed Rachael Williams, cut her up, and stuck her in the refrigerator?” Swinson asked.

“And the freezer.”

“Then he beats the hell out of that African nurse, Zenawi or whatever her name is, and tries to strangle her to death?”

“That’s how it appears.”

“He’d also been abusing Adelle Smith for two or three days?”

“As far as we can tell.”

“But yet she has bruises on her that look like they’re at least a week old as well as burn marks that have almost entirely healed?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out myself. Maybe Simmons had been sneaking into the apartment and torturing her for a couple of weeks and no one noticed? Maybe that’s why he started torturing Rachael Williams? Maybe she caught him in the act?”

“Uh-huh. So then Tonya comes home and he starts beating her up too, but somehow the nurse manages to wake up after being choked unconscious and beaten half to death by a guy who outweighs her by more than a hundred and fifty pounds, stabs him twice in the abdomen and in the process accidentally stabs Tonya Brown in the chest, then gets shot accidentally by Adelle Smith who is lying on the floor and can barely move? Yeah, something definitely does not sound right about that story. Too much accidental shit going on there. I suggest you wait until one of the other victims wakes up before putting that garbage in a report.”

“That nurse, Natsinet Zenawi, has already corroborated most of the story.”

Detective Swinson rubbed his balding scalp and shook his head, squinting an eye at his partner before turning to look back at Detective Hendrix.

“I’d wait to hear what Mrs. Smith has to say about it before turning that report in. You’re right. Something just doesn’t fit. When Tonya Brown wakes up from surgery she might be able to piece together a little more of the story.”

“You don’t buy any of this shit do you?” Detective Carl Hendrix asked.

“Not a single word.”

“I hate to say this after all she’s gone through, getting beaten and choked unconscious, then getting shot and waking up in the hospital with a permanent limp if she’s lucky and isn’t stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.”

“What are you thinking, Carl?”

“I think Miss Zenawi is hiding something. Either she’s the victim she appears to be and she’s just in shock so her story isn’t making sense, or she’s somehow involved. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was fucking that drug dealer and they tortured Rachael Williams and Adelle Smith together.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened,” Detective Swinson added, “You know…a boyfriend and girlfriend team torturing and killing, even raping. There’ve been serial killers whose wives and girlfriends were in on it with them. This could be one of those deals.”

“But then why would she stab him?” Detective Lennon asked.

“Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was Tonya Brown who stabbed him and then Natsinet took the knife from her and stabbed her in retaliation. Maybe she got jealous. Maybe Tonya Brown and Big Mike were having some kind of affair and so she stabbed them both in a jealous rage.”

“That
would
 explain why Mrs. Smith shot her.”

“It makes a lot more sense than her story, actually.”

“We’ll have to see what the lab comes back with on the fingerprints.”

“Do you know what will happen to that neighborhood if we don’t get this all figured out and soon?”

Brian huffed. “Riots and lawsuits and protesters marching on City Hall, Civil Rights leaders giving speeches about how the Philly P.D. is dragging its feet on the case because she’s Black. Conspiracy theorists will claim that we beat her up ourselves because of her protests against police brutality thirty-five years ago and are trying to cover it up and frame an innocent drug dealer.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Brian,” Hendrix said. ”They’ll blame it all on us even if we do solve the case.”

The nurse came back into the room.

“Mike Simmons is awake. He’s still pretty out of it. He just had a pretty large blood transfusion, but he asked to speak to you.”

The detectives all turned to look at one another, stunned.

“He asked to speak to the police?” Lennon asked.

“He insisted, actually. Adelle Smith is awake as well.”

“Can she talk?”

“Her speech is still impaired from the stroke. She speaks really slowly and her words are a little slurred…but yeah, she can talk.”

Detective Hendrix turned to the other two detectives.

“You two take Simmons. I want to hear what Mrs. Smith has to say before I join you. We might just get out of this okay after all.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Adelle shook her head in exasperation. She was once again in a hospital. Yet, despite her ordeal, she felt better this time than she had the last time she’d been here after suffering that stroke. At least now she could talk again.

“What’s your name young man?”

Her voice was weak. Her speech sluggish. The detective had to lean in close to hear her.

“Detective Hendrix, Carl Hendrix.”

“Are you Black?”

“My mother was Italian, but yes, I’m Black.”

“That’s good to hear. I was afraid you were going to say no.”

Adelle looked away from the detective and out the window at the sun dappling through the sheer curtains.

“I didn’t think I was going to see the sun too many more times.”

Adelle turned back to the detective.

“Did I get her?”

“What?”

“Is Tonya okay? Did I shoot the right one?”

“You mean you were trying to shoot your nurse?”

“Who the hell else do you think I was aiming at? Did I get her?”

Detective Hendrix’s eyebrows raised. He pulled out his notepad and pen and leaned forward.

“I think maybe you should tell me exactly what happened in that apartment.”

*      *      *

“You’re saying it was the nurse who did all this? That pretty skinny little thing in there that you tried to strangle to death?”

Detectives Swinson and Lennon looked at each other and almost laughed, shaking their heads as if sharing a private joke.

“She stabbed me twice. She killed that other nurse and chopped her up. She admitted it to me when I was trying to get Mrs. Smith out of the house. She’d been abusing Mrs. Smith too. Is she alright? Did I save her?”

Lennon replied. “Who? Mrs. Smith? She’s fine. One of the other detectives is in her room with her right now. She’s telling him all about how it was you who killed that nurse. It was
you
who tortured her for weeks and it was
you
 who beat and then stabbed her daughter!”

“Tonya got stabbed? Is she okay?”

Mike tried to sit up in bed, but he was still too weak. He winced as pain lanced through his abdomen then collapsed back onto the bed. The two detectives looked at each other. His reactions were all wrong. He wasn’t acting at all like a guilty man.

“Relax before you bust your stitches,” Detective Swinson said.  “Tonya Brown is in surgery right now, but the doctors think she’s going to be okay. The knife punctured a lung but it missed her heart.”

“Good. That’s good. I don’t know what I’d do if she didn’t make it.”

Detective Swinson rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Do you really think we’re buying this act of yours? This bullshit about that nurse being some kind of psycho when we both know what you are, a criminal, a drug pusher and a murderer? Just because you ain’t never been convicted for it doesn’t mean we don’t know all about the people you’ve killed. You’ve got one of the worst reputations on the street.”

“You know what I think?” Detective Lennon spoke up as he sat down on the bed next to Mike Simmons. “I think maybe you were trying to sneak Mrs. Smith out of the house and Ms Zenawi stabbed you to try to protect her employer.”

“Or did it go down differently?” Swinson said. “Were you and Ms. Zenawi hooked up? You two have some kind of thing going on? Maybe you were torturing Mrs. Smith together to add a little spice to your sex life? Is that how you get it up? By taking a cattleprod to a sixty-seven year old woman? I think you both murdered Rachael Williams and then you attacked Tonya when she got suspicious. The only thing I can’t understand is why Natsinet would stab you.”

“You guys are a bunch of idiots. What the hell you been smokin’? That nurse did this shit all by herself. I’d never do anything to hurt Mrs. Smith. The only reason I was even up in there was because I thought something about that half-White African bitch wasn’t right. Bitch acted creepy as hell from the first time I met her. Tonya asked me to check on her moms and when I went up in there the bitch stabbed me.”

Detective Swinson smiled wide. He’d been trying to find a murder he could pin on the big ex-con for half a decade. Now, he was pretty sure he had him.

“You go ahead and tell that story to a jury. With your record, they’ll have you on death row before you finish your last sentence.”

“Man, fuck you! I don’t give a damn what you think. Just ask Mrs. Smith. I ain’t have shit to do with this. I tried to save her from that crazy bitch! Mrs. Smith is one of the only people in that neighborhood that gives a damn about me.”

“We’re listening.”

 “True shit, man. When I was a kid she came over to my house once, when she heard that my Pops had beaten the hell out of my mom. See, he used to get real mean when he drank. He’d hit me and my moms with just about anything he could get his hands on. He’d put my mom in the hospital with a broken rib earlier that week and word had gotten back to Mrs. Smith about it. She walked right into my house and sat down at my kitchen table. She was pissed off. You could see it in her face. She pointed at my Dad and told him that it was his responsibility to raise me into a man, the kind of man that would help elevate our race, that would help eradicate the negative stereotypes the world has of Black men, that would ensure that our people continued to prosper and succeed. Then she asked him if he thought that his drinking, and runnin’ the streets with all kinds of different women, and beating up on his wife was going to set the kind of example I needed to become that type of man. My Pops looked like he was at school being chastised by the teacher. He broke down in tears and started apologizing and shit. He hugged me and my moms and told us both that he loved us. He never hit either one of us again. That’s the kind of woman Mrs. Smith is. Ain’t no way I would have hurt her. I’d give my life for that old woman.” He ran a hand over his bandaged stomach. “Shit, I damn near did.”

“He’s right.”

Detectives Swinson and Lennon turned as Carl Hendrix walked into the room.

“I just got finished talking to Mrs. Smith. He tried to save her. It was the nurse. She’d been torturing Mrs. Smith since the day she took the job. She used cattleprods and lighters and stunguns on her. Some real sick shit. And I think she may have done some worse stuff to her that she won’t talk about. I didn’t press her for details.”

“Awww shit. She did
all
 that shit to Mrs. Smith?” Mike said, his face displaying every bit of his revulsion. “Now, I really wish I had capped that crazy bitch!”

“Damn. So he’s innocent?” Detective Lennon asked, that confident self-satisfied smirk slipping from his face, shoulders sagging, clearly disappointed not to be the one to put Big Mike Simmons on death row.

“Hell, he’s a hero and so is she. She shot the right woman apparently. Saved all of their lives.”

“What made her do it? What, is she just crazy or somethin’?”

“Let’s go ask her. See if we can get a confession.”

*      *      *

Natsinet knew the minute the three detectives walked into her room that they’d figured it out. They stared at her as they entered, without speaking, their minds working overtime, trying to reconcile what they now knew about her with the fragile-looking woman before them. They circled her bed, keeping their distance as if they were afraid she would strike.

“So, what did that old bitch tell you about me?”

“She told us quite a bit, but we’re more interested in hearing what you have to say,” Detective Hendrix said.

“Are you White?”

“No.” Detective Hendrix replied, “I’m Black.”

“But you’re half White aren’t you?”

“My mother is Italian. I grew up in South Philly.”

“Do you speak Italian?”

“Fluently.”

“You should just tell people that you’re Sicilian. They tend to be a bit darker than Italians and your skin is pretty light, almost White. You could pass.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because you know. You see it everyday. You know what it means to be one of them. You see the welfare mothers and the crack whores and the gangbangers and the illegitimate kids and the deadbeat fathers. You see how people look at you when they realize that you’re not really White. How the position that was open just an hour ago when you called for directions on the phone is suddenly filled when they see your Black ass walk through the door. How they suddenly don’t have anymore apartments for rent in that building, or houses for sale in that neighborhood. How all the tables at that nice restaurant you’ve always wanted to try are now reserved except maybe for the one in the back by the kitchen, or next to the bathroom that nobody else wants. How they want to make sure you know how much that outfit or that jewelry or that purse or those sunglasses cost before you try it on, or how security makes it a point to be right behind you no matter where you go in the store or how many other customers there are. How that patrol car follows you for blocks wondering what the hell you’re doing in such a nice car or in such a nice neighborhood, just waiting for an excuse to stop you and search your car. You know all about that don’t you? You know what it’s like to be a nigger. So why the fuck would you want to be one?”

Detective Hendrix could feel his temper rising. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The hatred in the woman’s voice was staggering, even more so because she was talking about her own people. The detective felt embarrassed in front of his two White colleagues though he tried his best not to show it, wishing he was darker so that they wouldn’t be able to see him blush. He knew he must have been bright red from both anger and embarrassment. He stepped closer to the bed until he was standing directly above Natsinet. He leaned down to look her directly in her eyes. His jaws muscles clenched and veins stood out prominently in his neck as he struggled to speak in a calm measured voice.

“Yeah, I know what all of that feels like. But I also know what it feels like to be part of the proud heritage that helped to build this country. To be part of the culture that gave the world Blues and Jazz and Rock & Roll and R&B and Soul and Funk and even Hip Hop. I know what it’s like to be part of a people that came to this country in chains and now sits in all levels of government and business, lecturing about freedom and democracy all over the globe, dominating sports, and even carving out a place in the entertainment world. We have become one of the most emulated cultures on earth. I know what it’s like to be part of a people that came from nothing, with the entire world against us and fought our way up against all manner of adversity to become heroes to some of the same people that owned our ancestors. I know that pride. Let me ask you something Ms Zenawi, do you know how you tell which members of a species have the strongest genes?”

Natsinet glared at the Detective without speaking.

“You find the ones who have the greatest handicaps but are functioning at the same level as the ones who are not handicapped. The wolf with one leg that still runs and hunts with the pack. The blind bird that can still fly. The monkey with one arm that can still climb. Well, that’s us. That’s our people. We’ve been handicapped for generations, denied adequate education, adequate housing, equal opportunity for employment and advancement, yet we’re still here and we’re prospering. I know that pride. Adelle Smith knows that pride. But you don’t, do you?”

“No. Because I’m not Black. I’m not one of you. I am Eritrean. My people were never slaves. They were never conquered. My family are businessmen, politicians, doctors, lawyers…”

“And security guards?”

“What?”

“Security guards. That’s what your father did for a living right? He worked security at a construction site at night. He sat in a trailer all night watching out for any crackheads that might want to sneak onto the construction site to steal the copper wire and piping out of the buildings before they were framed and sheet-rocked. Real prestigious job, there. I mean, I know he was a doctor back in his own country, but in America, he was just a rent-a-cop. Adelle told me all about it. That’s why you went crazy, because you were ashamed of him. Because your mother’s family rejected him… and you.”

Natsinet lunged for the detective, digging her nails into his face, trying to claw his eyes out. Detective Hendrix screamed as her nails dug rivulets in his forehead and eyelids that immediately welled with blood. He grabbed her wrists and struggled to wrench her hands free from his face. Detectives Swinson and Lennon raced to his side and tried to pull her hands free as well.

“
I’ll fucking kill you! You don’t know me! You don’t know my father! You fucking nigger
!”

“Arrrhhh! Get her the fuck off of me! My eyes! She trying to scratch out my eyes!”

She disappeared beneath the detectives who were now punching at her to try to get her to let go of Detective Hendrix. One of his eyelids had been nearly torn off and the white of his cheekbone was visible through one of the deep avulsions she had carved in his cheek, the skin raked back, peeled away in jagged strips the way one would peel an orange.

When she finally let go, she had much of the detective’s eyelids beneath her bloodied fingernails and his gun clenched in her hands, her finger on the trigger aiming it at the three Detectives.

Detective Carl Hendrix fell to the floor, clutching his vandalized face, blood spurting out between his fingers. The other two detectives backed away slowly, reaching for their weapons.

“Now just calm down and nobody has to get hurt here,” Detective Lennon said.

“That’s where you’re fucking wrong.”

She pointed the gun at Detective Hendrix and pulled the trigger, putting a hole in his chest before her own body began to dance and spasm. Blossoming with holes like roses blooming in sudden explosions of red as Swinson and Lennon emptied their guns into her.